


Focus

by thewritingotter



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Frottage, Hand Jobs, Impala Sex, M/M, Mentions of Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2013-12-08
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:01:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewritingotter/pseuds/thewritingotter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda after 9x09.<br/>Castiel's got Theo's grace in him, but he doesn't quite feel the same. Dean lends a helping hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Focus

There’s nothing left of Kevin Tran’s funeral pyre save for a few glowing embers and the ash that litters the ground and floats in the air. The smoke is still there though, the warm woodsy smell spreading and fading slowly, rising up into the dark sky just as the fire from moments ago had reached for it. The cold’s settling around them now—Castiel’s immune to it, but he can almost see the blues of the cold slip through the cracks of the dying red warmth the fire’s left—and he turns to tell his friend so. If there’s one thing he learned from his brief foray into humanity, it’s that the cold can be as despicable as pain.

Dean’s staring at the plumes escaping from beneath burnt wood. His eyes are blank, his hands are clenched, and his chest is heaving slow, shuddering breaths. Castiel knows it for what it is—grief, despair. Sadness. He’d felt those so keenly, so sharply when he was human, emotions weighing his shoulders down and overwhelming him until he drowned in them. He hated them, he honoured them, he revelled in the myriad of sensations he’d felt. 

Now he feels nothing.

He tries to summon appropriate emotions for the occasion—all he managed is a faint sense of loss for a fallen soldier. Nothing at all, he supposes, like how Dean must be feeling. 

One of the homeless men he’d talked to before told him that losing his house, his money, and his dog hadn’t hurt as much as losing his son had. It’s like losing a limb, he’d told Castiel, you’ll never feel as complete ever again. Castiel thought that he knew what that felt like—having lost his grace before—but he realizes now, with Theo’s grace swirling inside him and his powers at the tip of his fingers again, that it’s not quite the same; the man lost something _forever_ , Castiel can still get what is his back.

“We gotta get back,” Dean says, and if his voice wobbles a little bit, Castiel doesn’t think it wise to mention it. “Sammy- we gotta get back to Sammy.”

“Of course,” Castiel says, voice clipped. Dean startles. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” Dean replies far too quickly. “It’s just-“ He claps down hard on Castiel’s shoulder, wincing when the angel doesn’t as much buckle or bend under the weight. “Jesus, it’s like hitting a brick wall. You’re really back, aren’t you?”

Castiel nods, “yes.”

“How does it feel to be all… angel-fied?” Dean asks teasingly, arm dragging down the folds of Castiel’s borrowed trench coat. 

Castiel tilts his head, mouth pursed. Too much, he wants to say, like I can see the stars and the moon and the sun all at once, like the future and the past are lines knotting and connecting around us, like I can see every atom in your body and in mine, like the world is whirling around me, so many things pulling and pushing and changing while I remain at the midst, watching and waiting, watching and waiting-

And it’s all so distant.

“Numb,” he tells Dean instead. 

Dean stares at him thoughtfully, eyes drifting over the too-dark coat and the stained shirt and the pants that fit too well. He looks back up. “Yeah, shock does that to you.” 

Castiel doesn’t want to tell him that he can’t even feel shock anymore, not like how a human can anyway.

The drive back to the bunker is silent, the radio left at a low murmur of classical music. Castiel can hear the quiet strains of sombre cello and he wonders if this is how Dean mourns. Soft music instead of anguished cries, calm, controlled breaths instead of inconsolable sobs. 

He wonders how he would have grieved as a human. Zachariah told him once, an ugly sneer on his unfortunate vessel’s face, that Sam had been “a big ball of miserable anger careening down the road of destruction.” Would Castiel have been the same? Would he have cried? Would he have refused the burning of a dear friend in the hopes of finding a way to bring him back? Would he be able to light the match himself when it comes to it, watch as the flames devour Dean—or Sam—until nothing’s left but ashes and smoke?

Everything’s muted—too quiet and muffled. He dislikes it.

He rolls the window down, almost frantically, until he can feel the wind brush past his face. He can feel it sift through his hair, play with the collar of his coat, but it’s not enough. He lifts a hand up and out the window. The wind is flowing against and around his fingers; he can see it, he can feel it, numb though he is. He knows it’s supposed to be cold—knows it’s freezing even—but he can only watch as swirls of blue mingle and dissipate. Nothing, nothing, nothing. 

He hears Dean’s voice calling him before he feels the warmth of his hand against his arm. Castiel turns to him. “Dean?”

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Dean quips, although the teasing edge of his voice clashes with his solemn eyes. “Better pull that hand back before you lose it, buddy.”

Castiel pauses, turns back to the hand dangling out of the window. He leaves it stubbornly outside.

“When Sammy was younger,” Dean continues, “Bobby gave him this toy jetfighter plane. It was a foot long, all grey and battered lookin’, but Sammy loved the stupid thing. He’d pretend he was some pilot, y’know, dangling outside the car and letting it ride the winds. Dad hated it and he kept yellin’ at him about it, but you know Sammy—kid’s got a stubborn head on his shoulders. Don’t know where he got it from.” He chuckles. “Anyway, Dad had enough one day, and he started edging in closer to the other lane, sayin’ that if Sam didn’t stop hangin’ off the damn window, he and his goddamn airplane were gonna end up on the grill of some car. On cue, there was a truck coming towards us, and that should’ve been enough for either of them, but no. Dad’s always liked to scare us into something and Sam- well you know Sam. I was beggin’ the both of them to stop, and just before Sam became human road kill, I reached to him and pulled him back. The plane was smashed into pieces on the road. And Dad- he drove on, only swerving back to the centre of the road when he thought everything’s alright.” Dean tosses him a grin, eyes still so blank and sad. “Lesson learned. Sammy never dangled half out the car after.”

“Your father would have driven away from the truck if you hadn’t pulled Sam back,” Castiel says, fingers still playing outside. He can see the early drops of rain on it, the water spreading and darkening the skin where they land. 

“Yeah, but we didn’t know that then.” Dean’s lips purse, brows knitting anxiously—as they always do when he’s about to say something he doesn’t really want to. “Hey, man, you, uh, you okay?”

“Why would I not be?” Castiel snaps, and he regrets it immediately. He understands Dean’s concern—Castiel doesn’t feel quite… the same himself. He softens his voice, “I should be asking you that same question.”

Dean shrugs. “You know me; gimme a couple of hours to condense it all and stuff it into the-box-that-must-never-be-opened. And then I bounce back.” He winks at Castiel cheekily. “This is me bouncing back.”

“No, it isn’t,” Castiel says, and in a split-second, he sees Dean’s face crumble before the mask is back on. He opens his mouth to say more, some generic condolences or something, when white light flashes from outside. Castiel turns to it, eyes widening as thunder booms. 

Before, it was loud, encompassing, rattling him to the core—now, it’s muffled, as if it’s something he’s seeing behind the glass of a television. He can’t really hear it; he’s not really there.

Lightning flashes across the sky, tendrils crawling down from the apex into fingers and embers of light and power. Rain is starting to pour hard outside, their rhythmic pounding accompanying the cello swelling inside the Impala.

Castiel knows how beautiful it can all be, how strong and majestic and _powerful_. 

But he can’t _feel_ it.

“Cas?”

“Stop,” Cas tells him.

“What?”

“Stop the car, Dean.”

“Dude, what-“

“ _Stop the car_ ,” he orders, voice deep and insistent. Eyebrows furrowed and mouth pursed, Dean obeys, slowing down and manoeuvring the Impala to the side of the road. As soon as it gentles into a stop, Castiel pulls at the handle, pushing and nearly mangling the car door in his haste to get out, to be closer to the rain, the lighting and thunder. To _feel_.

He wishes now he’d gotten his wings back along with the stolen grace. He wants to fly, to hover close to static and crackling electricity, to skim the edges of danger and pain. Instead, he stretches his arms out and turns his head up towards the rain, eyes closed and mouth open. He can feel them soaking him, matting his hair to his face and his clothes to his body, but it’s…

It’s not enough.

It’s not cold anymore. It doesn’t sting. Nothing’s too bright or too dark, too rough or too smooth, too saturated or too colourful. Castiel has more information than a simple brain can process, he can see more colours than human eyes are capable of, can hear and smell _more_ … but everything’s veiled. Muted. Muffled.

“Cas?”

Castiel shakes his head.

“Cas.” Dean’s trying to turn him around now, and Castiel lets him, arms falling limply to his sides. “Cas, man, what-“ Castiel hears him gasp softly when the angel drops his head heavily onto wide shoulders. Dean’s hand reluctantly wraps around the back of Castiel’s neck, the slight touch strangely comforting.

“I’m not okay,” Castiel murmurs against Dean’s jacket. 

“You bet your ass you’re not,” Dean says, his fingers now kneading at Castiel’s nape. “You had a hell of a year, Cas, of course you’re not.”

“You’re not okay too,” Castiel says, and he continues before Dean can say something smart, “I _know_ you’re not. Although I cannot sympathise. I’m sorry, Dean.” Dean sighs, and Castiel can feel his nod displace the hairs at the back of Castiel’s head. “It’s- I’m… numb.”

Dean stiffens. “Is that normal?”

“No,” Cas replies immediately. “Yes.”

Dean chuckles. “Which one is it?”

“It’s not normal for humans,” Cas says. “For you. For angels it’s… we’re more. We see more, we know more but-“ He pauses as he lifts his head from Dean’s shoulder and opens his eyes. His hand drifts over the hunter’s jacket, tracing the dips of the stitches, the line of its collar. “Fabric isn’t quite as scratchy,” he continues, “It’s not as smooth or as rough. Angels aren’t meant to feel, Dean—we’re meant to protect, to watch. We are dull where humans are sharp.” He drops his hand. “I just… I want to feel.” He sighs. “I apologize.”

“Don’t.” It’s Dean who encroaches his personal space this time, arms wrapping loosely around Castiel. “You’re grieving, man; it’s okay _not_ to be okay.”

“You should heed your own words.”

Dean laughs. “Hey, one fucked up head at a time, ‘kay?” He releases Castiel, favouring the angel with a bright smile. “Besides, you’re an angel now, yeah? That’s good…?”

Castiel hesitates. “I suppose.”

Dean frowns. “Didn’t you- don’t you want to be an angel?”

“It’s what I need to be,” he answers carefully. 

“But what do you _want_ to be?” Castiel shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about the answer to that just yet, afraid that it isn’t what he expects. “Okay.” Dean nods. “So you can’t feel? Cas, I’ve seen you get hurt before.”

“Not like that.” Cas frowns. “I’m more… and less.”

“Ah, more weirdo angel biology things.”

Cas feels a smile spread across his lips despite himself. “More weirdo angel biology things,” he echoes.

“Okay.” Dean pushes Cas an arm’s length away, examining him studiously. “Let’s start small then.” He takes Castiel’s hands, his scarred ones rubbing at them vigorously. “Can you feel that?”

Castiel stares at their joined hands. “You’re warming mine up.”

“Yes, but can you _feel_ them?”

“I can understand how it is that they’re warmer,” Castiel says, “I can see the heat building up, I can-“

“You didn’t answer my question. Concentrate.” Dean breathes over their hands, and Castiel jolts as he suddenly feels heat rushing into his cheeks and creeping up his neck. 

His hand forgotten, he replies, “yes.”

“Good.” Dean drops his hands, but Castiel clings on. Dean’s tethering him, keeping him here before he flits off somewhere again. “Cas?”

Cas traces the scars in Dean’s hand. Sam had once joked that Dean had come back “good as new” from hell. That wasn’t true. When Castiel had rebuilt Dean, he had been careful to restore him as he was before his death; he’d painstakingly redrawn every scar, every blemish, every scratch. It was an insult to erase them all, he’d thought, a disrespect to all the years Dean had lived. 

He can still see all the little scars he’d remade in Dean’s hands, the calluses he’d refused to soften and the bumps he’d refused to smooth. They are a part of Dean, these imperfections. 

He hears Dean’s breath hitch when Castiel’s finger follows a particularly long scar down to the centre of his palm. He kneads Dean’s palm, thumb rubbing circles on it as his other fingers grip the back of his hand firmly. 

“Cas?” Dean repeats, softer this time, and when Castiel looks up to him, Dean’s staring at him, eyes dark and barely green under what little light they have. Castiel thinks, if he concentrates enough, that he can almost read the multitude of expressions that cross Dean’s face, each flitting past faster than the next. He can hear a cacophony of Dean’s thoughts echoing around them, try as he may to block them, feelings of longing and near-misses, guilt and relief, fear and want spreading and reaching for Castiel. 

“If you want to kiss me,” Castiel tells him, “I won’t fly away.”

Dean’s eyes widen. “You said you wouldn’t use your freaky-deaky powers to read my mind anymore,” he accuses.

Castiel huffs. “You were too loud.”

Dean bites his lip, hesitates. The tension is so palpable Castiel knows he can touch it if he wants to. He almost reneged on his earlier words, loathe to cause the awkwardness between them again; before he could, Dean dips his head and presses his lips against Castiel’s cheek, soft and sweet and wet with rain.

He pulls back before Castiel can turn his head to kiss him properly, breath dancing teasingly over Castiel’s lips. “Can you feel that?”

Castiel pauses. He feels warmer somehow, his heart picking up where it had been a steady beat. 

Dean kisses him again, this time at the corner of his mouth. “Can you feel that?” It’s barely there and he can’t. It’s drowned by the pounding of his heart, by the blood rushing into his face and neck. Touch seems so inconsequential compared to this, his nerves starting to light up, starting to condense where to focus, where to feel. Dean reaches up and cradles Castiel’s cheek in the palm of his hand, thumb tracing his cheekbones. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel whispers so softly he doesn’t think Dean can hear him. 

Before he can repeat it louder, Dean leans in and presses a kiss against his mouth. It isn’t deep-- _not yet_ , he thinks at the back of his mind—and when Dean makes to pull away, Castiel tugs at the lapels of his jacket, and deepens the kiss. Dean pulls Castiel closer and the angel lets him, allowing Dean to push him against the car, their bodies moulded so perfectly against each other. He gasps when Dean slips an arm into his trench coat and around his waist and yanks the back of his shirt out from where it’s tucked neatly into his pants. Fingertips skim at his back, dipping down curiously, only to follow the line of his spine up. And then Castiel can taste the rain on Dean’s tongue, smell smoke and ashes on his skin, feel the sharp and soft contours of his body. He moans, arms wrapping around Dean. 

Dean pulls back, pressing his forehead against the other man’s. He’s gasping for breath, Castiel realises, and he can’t help the surge of pride at having rendered Dean like this. “I’m guessing you felt that, huh?” Dean teases, teeth flashing prettily at him.

Castiel reaches up and pushes a stray, wet strand of hair away from Dean’s forehead, hand coming back down to brush softly against long lashes. “Yes,” he says. 

Dean grins brightly. “Good.” He kisses him softly. “Focus,” he tells Castiel when the angel begins to drift again, the pillowy press of Dean’s lips on his skin and the light scratch of the calluses on his fingers dulling slightly. “Focus.” He kisses down Castiel’s neck, pressing a soft kiss just below his jaw and then at the muscle leading down to the hollow of his neck. “Focus.” And Castiel can feel it all, every push of his lips, the sharp bite he leaves at the end of every kiss.

He wants more, he wants to tell Dean, _he wants him_. “Dean,” he pants instead. “Dean.”

Dean looks up to him and he must have seen something; he swallows. “Yeah, okay.” He kisses Castiel hard, arms now wrapped possessively around the other man. “Okay.” An arm uncoils around Castiel and reaches to fumble at something behind him. There’s a click and Dean’s pulling at his waist. “Car, now.”

They tangle into the back seat, twisting and tangling against each other. Castiel spares a thought at ruining the upholstery—so used to Dean’s complaints and nagging about his car—but that disappears when Dean begins to mouth at his collarbones, unbuttoning and pushing his shirt aside. 

Castiel slips his hands under Dean’s jacket, fingers dancing over the curve his spine. So graceful, he thinks of it, precise, even in the midst of battle. There’s a bit of softness now where it was all hard planes and angles a long time ago, relaxed where it was taut. He feels Dean bite down at a nipple and he gasps. “Focus,” Dean repeats, and he only resumes his earlier ministrations when Castiel looks up to him pleadingly. He’s breathless and it’s ridiculous; angels don’t need to breathe.

“Dean,” he gasps, suddenly unable to say anything else without breaking into intelligible syllables. 

Dean climbs back up to kiss him, and Castiel is lost again under his fingers and lips and the way his leg is pressing so close against him. His neck hurts from the uncomfortable angle, head cushioned by the hard armrest, and his legs are still hanging out the car, but that hardly registered; he can feel, with some clarity, Dean’s tongue swiping at the back of his teeth, his kiss-swollen lips.

And then Dean’s unbuttoning Castiel’s pants, pushing them down to his knees. Deft fingers dip inside and wrap around Castiel’s erection, and he moans loudly before he can stop himself. Dean chuckles against his lips, voice low. Castiel can feel arousal and something else flash hot inside him when Dean strokes his cock slowly, languidly. Dean’s own erection presses against his thigh insistently and he reaches for it. The hunter bats his hands away.

“Focus,” Dean orders, biting at the curve of his jaw. He’s gripping Castiel’s cock tighter now, stroking him faster. “Focus.”

Castiel shakes his head, fingers marking crescents on the sleeves of Dean’s jacket as he tries desperately to hold on. “But you-“

Dean kisses him again, distracts him. Castiel’s beginning to dislike this pattern, no matter how pleasurable he finds kissing. “Focus.” Castiel moans. He’s close, he knows it, something in him building with every touch and every kiss. Idly, he feels Dean thrust against his leg in time with his strokes, pushing Castiel up further against the side door. 

Dean pulls back, enough to watch him, eyes roving over Castiel’s flushed cheeks and wide eyes. He smiles at the angel, gently, sweetly. “Let go, Cas.” It is strange that it’s mostly this—not Dean’s heated kisses or eager touches—the fondness in his eyes and the pretty curve of his lips, that pushes him over the edge. Something in Castiel uncoils and he’s gasping as he comes, a pleasurable haze settling over him. 

Castiel reaches up to run his knuckles down Dean’s face, reverently and in awe, and then the other man groans, kissing Castiel hard when he comes shortly after him. “Cas,” Dean breathes against his lips.

Castiel feels his perception spread again: the rain pounding against the roof of the car, the water running down their legs, the blue of the cold swirling around them. Everything is muted again, dull, save for the loud beating of Dean’s heart and the warmth between them. Castiel doesn’t let go—doesn’t want to let go of it just yet.

“My shoes are wet,” Castiel says instead of the many things he wants to tell Dean.

Dean laughs. “Yeah.” He pulls Castiel up, pushing and prodding at him until his pants are buttoned again and he’s curled up and tucked against Dean. The hunter slams the open door shut, wincing when it shakes water into the car. “Should’ve closed that before,” he quips. 

“Should’ve dried us up before,” Castiel mumbles against his shoulder. 

Dean laughs. “Yeah, that would’ve saved a _ton_ off the cleaning bills.”

“I can still dry the upholstery,” Castiel says. “I can ‘mojo’ the Impala clean. I can ‘mojo’ _us_ clean.”

Dean shakes his head, fingers tracing the stains over Castiel’s stomachs. “Nah, man. Okay, maybe later, but now, you gotta rest up. Recharge some of those batteries.”

Castiel can hear Dean’s thoughts again, can feel his worries and sadness between them. He tilts Dean’s head up, eyeing the hunter seriously. “Angel or not,” he says sincerely, “I don’t know what I want yet.”

“Yeah, I know.” And Castiel can sense, even before Dean moves, the other man pulling away, closing him off.

Castiel surges up against him and kisses him, close-mouthed and chaste. “Focus,” he says. He’s pleased when Dean huffs against his lips and settles back down. “I don’t know what I want to be just yet. I don’t want to- I don’t want to have to choose in the end. For someone like me, having the luxury of choosing is hard enough.”

“It’s different now,” Dean says.

“Yes.” Castiel links their hands together. “But if I have to,” he says. “I’ll always make the choice to stay.”

Dean smiles at him, hesitant and hopeful all at once. “Yeah?”

“Angel or not,” Castiel says, “I’ll still stay.”

He knows the rain is stopping soon, that warm reds will start mingling with the cold blues once again, that they need to go back to the bunker, deal with Gadreel and Sam and Crowley again…

But at this moment, all he can feel with some clarity is Dean’s hand wrapped around his, the soft kiss he’s pressing against Castiel’s hairline. 

“Guess I’m saddled with you, huh?” Dean teases.

“As long as you’ll have me,” Castiel promises.

He notes, as he lays his head on Dean’s shoulder again, that they no longer smell like smoke and ashes.


End file.
